96 NIGERIA SOUTHERN PROVINCES 



distance inland, coconut plantations are common, and, 

 near Badagry, copra is prepared from them for ship- 

 ment. 



The crops cultivated in the Central Province are similar 

 to those of the Western, but yams become more, and 

 groundnuts less prominent. Large quantities of palm 

 oil are prepared, and rubber is collected, the labour 

 available for farm work being thereby reduced. 



The most important product of the Eastern Province 

 is undoubtedly palm oil, but fairly large quantities of 

 yams and maize are grown outside the forest zone and 

 are transported by native canoes to the coast ports, in 

 the vicinity of which there is very little cultivation. 



With the exception of the oil palm, which is of general 

 occurrence throughout the country, the Lagos silk rubber 

 tree (Funtumia elastica) is of the most importance from 

 a commercial standpoint. Rubber vines of the genera 

 Landolphia and Carpodinus are also valuable wild plants, 

 from which some of the finest rubbers are at present 

 extracted. Copal, known as " Ogea " gum, and collected 

 from a tree which has been determined as Cyanoihyrsus 

 oblongus (syn. ogea), is exported in varying quantity 

 according to the market value. A fairly extensive local 

 trade is done in " chew -sticks " in the Western Province ; 

 the sticks being cut from a tree which occurs in the grass 

 country, and is recognised as Anogeissus leiocarpus. The 

 ash made from the wood of the same tree is sold for use 

 as a mordant in indigo dyeing. Camwood is a red dye- 

 wood prepared from at least three different species of 

 trees Baphia nitida, Pterocarpus tinetorius, and Ptero- 

 carpus sp. and is almost entirely used locally for staining 

 the human skin or dyeing leather. Fibre plants do not 

 appear to be cultivated in any part of the country, but 

 occur to some extent in all the forested parts. Hibiscus 

 guineensis and Dombeya buettneri are usually employed 

 for native ropes, and the bark of Sterculia barter i is said 

 to be prepared for the same purpose. 



OIL PALM. A description of this tree and information 

 in connection with the principal characteristics and 

 mode of propagation have been given in the Sierra 

 Leone portion of this work, and it may merely be remarked 

 that there is no difference in a general way between trees 

 grown in the two localities. With regard to the form of 



